Right, so picking this first day back from a 10-day vacation wasn't the smartest move. While I coasted through the morning in my post-vacation Zen, the day really tried my patience and endurance. My first day back was 12 hours long.
When I came home, Jack met me at the door with a glass of wine and a little appetizer so I could relax before dinner. Best. Dude. Ever.
All thoughout the day, I listened to my self-talk. It's exhausting, to focus on each though stringing throught your head like you're spinning yarn. I created two big wooden boxes in my head, one to the left of my mental space, one to the right. The one to the right is a big white wooden box, with thick wood slats, like one would find on a beach to house kayaks. This box is marked "Pandora's" in newspaper ransom note letters. The other box, a navy blue painted wood box, sits to the left, sort of in the shadows and has "EXPECTATIONS" strewn across it in hurried white paint.
As I sense a thought that is pressing down on me or another person as an unfair, heavy, or just goofy expectation, I mentally shove it in the blue box. But if I encounter any thought that is negative, going back to my old ways of doing something just to make someone else happy, or to achieve, or to look really good because my email box is at 3 (not!), I shove those compulsions into Pandora's Box. I'm not sure if I will ever want to sort through that stuff again but for right know, I know they're safe and out of my way.
My thoughts today still did vary when I had to break up a scruffle between two docs, spearhead a terrifying budgeting process, and continued to shoulder a staffing crisis in IR. But I purposely tried to change my attitude. I'm doing this for my people and for my patients. Not for me or my ego, to prove that I'm good at my job.
I shared a bit of my struggle with my boss this morning, about the perfectionism thing, and she just laughed. She said something like, "You do so well, I don't even know what you're worried about." She didn't take me too seriously, so I will have to give her some examples about this paradigm shift I'm trying to make.
And without further adieu, mostly because my blessed Ambien is kicking in, I noted a few failures today at work. I did not finish paperwork on root cause analyses and 2 other contracts that need to go out by tomorrrow at the latest. I set the goal to get my email down to under 100 and I got it to 104. I set the goal to leave the office by 5:45 and I got out of there at 6:10. Pretty sure I won't lose my job over these. OH, and I left a few dishes in the sink, letting Jack take care of things if he felt like it. I didn't go to the gym and instead, watched an episode of Deadliest Catch. The work will be there tomorrow. The fat will be there tomorrow, as will the paper I have due on Saturday. I have to clean my house this week for the management team I am hosting for dinner on Friday night. Yet, somehow it will be all complete and it will have been GOOD ENOUGH!
Hurray for this new permission in my life...good enough!
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